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Album Review: Flamingods – Levitation

Flamingods
Levitation
Moshi Moshi
★★★

Fusing psychedelic sounds with a mantra of meditative quality are two winning combinations that fuel Flamingods’ Levitation. Utilizing influences of disco, funk, and psychedelic music from ‘70s era Middle East and South Asia, there is an outer dimension to their indie prose.

Add in a slew of close friends to the Flamingods community, their sophomore release contains work from bands like Comet Is Coming, Vanishing Twin and Snapped Ankles.

Flamingods – Paradise Drive

Within the framework of swirling psychedelia lies a lyrical mosaic that burns like lavender. “Club Coco” is a mantra of soft persuasion instead of out of body experience. On the other hand, “Paradise Drive” could either be a soundtrack for a cruise down Ocean Drive or Bangladesh. With either perspective, Flamingods never presents a freak out. However their rock stature does allow for ancient sounds to permeate current technique. With that their music never feels dated.

Right before that, “Olympia” bounces psych pop as if the Flamingods came from the future and digested the K Records discography then churned out this Day-Glo delicacy. But they put their best Beatles boot forward and use ancient Indian culture to construct a wild ritualistic adventure in “Nizwa.” Spin this into an instrumental, and it would be ecstasy. The way the band succumbs to strings that melt into a weird jam before it burns off into infinity is bliss.

They leave us with a post-seven minute title track. Consider this piece of transcendentalism their “rock ballad.” But it’s also the band’s point of departure; secular meditation The Flaming Lips or Spiritualized would get into. Halfway through the song, the discovery is that the Flamingods churn out one more dimensional psychedelic jam as if we are flying directly into the sun.